If Janome America had a mantra it would likely be 'always be prepared'. The New Jersey-based company has a penchant for planning for the best, and worst-case scenarios, to ensure uninterrupted business continuity. In 2003, the company moved its hardware and Apprise application to the cloud, where it could be hosted, monitored and protected to prevent business disruption. That planning paid off big time when Hurricane Sandy struck in October, 2012.

Planning Ahead

After the 9-11 tragedy in New York City, Janome America's team began to think of ways it could protect its business in the event a natural or man-made disaster struck its New Jersey headquarters. Executives feared flooding, fire, or other natural disaster could temporarily cripple its sewing machine and parts distribution.

Janome's executive team had heard good things about cloud deployments, which provide an extra measure of safety by eliminating the need for local hardware, since data is moved to a secure offsite location.

"We moved our Apprise application offsite to protect our data against flooding and fire," said Ray Bunora, IT/Logistics Manager. "We were confident our data would be secure in an environment specifically built to protect hardware and data investments."

Hurricane Sandy

In late October, weather forecasters were starting to sound the alarm that the East Coast was in for a monumental weather situation. Residents and business owners up and down the East Coast of the US Eastern Seaboard were beginning to worry about the path of the storm, and its implications on their homes and livelihoods. On October 29th, the storm hit, and Janome America lost power and internet service for six days.

October is crunch time for consumer goods companies like Janome. That's when the bulk of their orders get processed and shipped in time for the holiday season. While hurricanes are always unwelcome, the arrival of Sandy in late October was particularly unlucky.

"Hurricane Sandy was a real test for our Apprise cloud deployment," noted Bunora. "Being without power and internet for as long as we were could have been disastrous for us, but since our application is hosted in the cloud, our business was up and running despite the devastation in and around our area."

During and after Hurricane Sandy, Janome's cloud application stayed up and running thanks to a combination of battery backup and diesel-fueled generators. In addition, a redundant ISP provider worked as expected, to keep Janome's
internet connection, email, and customer portal active.

While more than 95 percent of Janome employees were without power, Bunora and a few other team members were able to access Apprise remotely to process current and incoming orders, to ensure holiday orders were delivered on time.

"After Sandy hit, a few team members worked remotely to process orders," said Bunora. "Dealers were able to place orders as usual through our Apprise Customer Portal, and our warehouses in Canada and Nevada were filling orders
to meet deadlines."

After the Storm

Today, Janome is back to business as usual. Remarkably, the company met its sales projections for October and expects to finish the year on target. With Hurricane Sandy behind them, Bunora and other executives are looking for new ways to secure their business. Talks are underway to put internet service protocol (ISP) phones in employee homes, and to provide more employees with laptops so they can access Apprise from their homes or other remote locations.

"We didn't have any problems with Apprise during or after the hurricane. With Apprise it's really easy to work remotely," remarked Bunora. "I highly recommend moving hardware offsite and replicating your database
elsewhere. We've found the cloud environment absolutely secure because it's designed to protect servers and data."

In the end, Hurricane Sandy was devastating for so many people. But with foresight and planning, Janome America was able to keep its operations running despite the weather disaster. Deploying in the cloud enabled the company to serve its customers without disruption, it also helped protect employee livelihoods, too.